The Storm King's Thunder

Prologue

I was almost always alone as a child, my first memories were of the dock hands finding me and bringing me aboard a ship. I was thrown below to where other women and children were hidden and huddled together. They were dirty, clothes damp and musty, but they were all different from me. They had differing skins from olive to brown to white, while I had a pale blue that made the older children below make fun of me. Socially, I was a bit awkward but I tried to get along with everyone, and help out wherever I could. I would often use my magic to entertain the children while the women did their own thing. I could form shapes and twist the water around them, playing cheerfully and creating stories of imagination. The younger children loved me, and their mothers were grateful to me.

Throughout the years, we would be thrown from ship to ship. Sometimes gaining more women and children, other times losing them. Sometimes a man would drunkenly come down and have his way with a lady, the screams and cries haunted the darkness for me.

I never knew how long we were aboard the latest ship, but I knew I hadn't seen the sun light in many moons. And I wouldn't see it until the day we heard shouting from above, and a large boom. The floor began to shake, and I could hear the water rushing through the hull of the ship. In that moment, it was like the world stood still around me. I saw the fear on the women's faces as they clutched their children tightly or were scrambling to stay upright. I knew I had to try to save them. I felt the water begin to swell beneath us, and I rushed toward the cabin stairs towards the locked door to above. Pushing, screaming and crying for help – I pounded my body against the door.

The water was filling the below now, women were trying to get to the door. They were pushing against me, pushing against the door. Outside, the men were crying out but made no move to open the door. I cried out with all my might and as I did – a wave of emotion and water smashed against the door, throwing me and many others to the deck.

The sunlight was blinding, and I was being stepped on and hearing too many things all at once. My head, shoulder and hip hurt from the impact, my eyes screamed against the sun. It took me a few moments to catch my bearings enough to move out of the way. I couldn't make sense of the horror around me. There were men bleeding from gaping wounds, others dead or dying while others still were lost in combat against other men. I had no idea who to help first or if I could or should. Lying on the deck a few feet away, I saw a bit of something shining in the sunlight. I was drawn to it, ran as fast as I could to it, jumping over a dead body along the way. It was a sword, a scimitar, and as I lifted it I heard women screaming once more.

There, across the deck were several of the mothers from below, they were being held at sword point while the men threw their children over the railing and into the raging sea around them. Immediately, I took action. I ran across the deck and dived headfirst into the water below. Opening my eyes and breathing in the water, I began to swim downward – searching for the other children who couldn't swim. I saw two relatively close together and swam to the younger of the two first, grabbing his arm as he flailed against me, terror on his tiny face. I did my best with the struggling tot, and swam to the other child, a little girl whose dress had nearly swallowed her whole now. And grabbed her with my free hand, and quickly swam to the surface, pushing the children ahead of me so they broke surface first. Searching the surface around me for some kind of life boat or drifting wooden pieces to attach the children to so I could help others, I quickly found a few pieces of wood attached by what looked like ripped sails and netting. Hurriedly, I lifted the two children atop the wood pile, making sure the older one could help the younger stay on it before I went back to the water. The whole process took only 3 minutes or so to find 4 more children that had been tossed overboard.

Swimming beside the wood pile, the women aboard the ship begged me to take the children to safety, to forget about the others but I knew I couldn't leave them to die or be sold into slavery either (a concept the older women feared most often). Pushing the pile of wood and children through the waters, around the ship, I found a small bit of rope and tied the wooden raft like thing to a broken piece of the ship, before I made a rope ladder with the help of my water.